Much of Benitez ’s work since he took over at St James’ Park has been about ensuring the club have top-flight status before he can start looking into some of the deeper issues at United.

Only last week Newcastle told a clutch of players at Under-23 level they had no future at the club after it was deemed by development staff that they hadn’t made the grade for the Magpies.

However, Benitez is keen to make sure an influx of homegrown players can boost his squad in the future with Paul Dummett one of the few players to succeed at Newcastle in recent years when it comes to regular first-team action.

Newcastle United manager Rafa Benitez (Image: Getty Images Europe)

When asked whether there was room for improvement, Benitez told the Chronicle: “Yeah, obviously the Academy is always quite difficult especially now because the Premier League is getting better and better.

“To bring players through from the Academy is not easy. We have to improve things around to make sure we can promote players in the future.”

Benitez has always kept a regular watch on the club’s second string but admits his priority since 2016 has HAD to be ensuring the first team were a Premier League outfit.

The former Real Madrid boss said: “The fact that we were in the Championship last season and have been coming back into the Premier League means you have to concentrate all your energy into staying up.

“At the same time, you have to keep an eye on the Academy and be sure that we improve things there.

“We want to create the situation where some of the players have a chance to stay in the Premier League and help the squad - or even make the difference (in the first XI) if it’s possible.”

Benitez celebrated two years in charge of the Magpies over the weekend and hopes to lay solid foundations at Newcastle going forward.

He added: “My experience in England was with Liverpool for six years. After three or four years they gave me the responsibility of the Academy.

“We changed the technical director at the Academy and we changed some coaches.

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“One of the coaches we brought in was Rodolfo Borrell who is now working with Pep Guardiola at Manchester City.

“The other one, the director of our Academy, was Pep Segura who is now the technical director of Barcelona. So we were right in choosing the people.

“We improved the LFC Academy a lot. If you want to have some chances of players coming from the Academy we have to keep working hard like we are already and change two or three things to be sure that young players have more chances to go close to the first team, because a couple of players from the Academy in the first team means that you will save a lot of money.